A former high-ranking U.N. diplomat from Russia, Vladimir Kuznetsov, has been convicted of a money-laundering conspiracy involving hundreds of thousands of dollars in ill-gotten bribes from companies seeking to do business with the United Nations.

A Manhattan jury took little more than an hour to find Kuznetsov, who once oversaw the budget of the world body, guilty of federal charges stemming from a five-year-long procurement scam. He faces up to 20 years in prison.

The government convinced the jury that Kuznetsov laundered more than $300,000.

The United Nations waived Kuznetsov’s diplomatic immunity to allow America to prosecute him. In a statement, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, Michael Garcia, praised the jury’s verdict, which came after an internal U.N. investigation concluded that fraud had occurred.

Kuznetsov’s cohort, Alexander Yakovlev, cooperated with the government and pleaded guilty in August 2005 to laundering, fraud, and bribery charges in connection with an offshore company set up to hide money funneled from companies seeking to do business with the United Nations. In exchange for the secret payoffs, the companies received confidential information.

Prosecutors said Kuznetsov — who chaired the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions — discovered Yakovlev’s scheme in 2000, but that he accepted payoffs and filled his own offshore company with the money instead of reporting Yakovlev to the authorities.

Kuznetsov, 49, has been under house arrest since the Russian government posted bail for him. He will remain confined there until his June sentencing.